Off the Cuff

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish zero in on:

• The Europe Disaster
  • With the the yields on sovereign debt skyrocketing and Greece potentially rejecting the recently-announced bailout plan, is the European financial system in danger of collapsing in the near term?
    
• MF Global
  • What’s the significance of the unexpected and instant collapse of this key broker?
    

Unlike during the past several weeks, the markets are now finally beginning to react negatively to the growing amount of bad data and developments. 

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish opine on:

• Market stresses galore
  • The markets are acting dangerously out of touch with both fundamental and technical indicators. What does that mean? And will the next break to be the upside or the downside?
    
• Europe
  • The situation continues to be a nerve-wracking tightrope walk. What are the likeliest outcomes and when are we likely to see some resolution? (Or devolution?)
    

To our commentators here, it smells like 2008 all over again, but the markets are shrugging off what should be a concerning amount of data.

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish discuss:

• The Occupy Wall Street Demonstrations
  • What’s the OWS movement about? Will it drive any real change?
• The Increasing Fragility of the Banking System
  • What’s the contagion risk to the global system if (or really when) Greece defaults?
• Market Correlation
  • Where do you get diversification when all assets are positively correlated?
    

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish tackle:

• The global commodity sell-off
  • What’s driving the action here, and what impact would a slowdown in China and other key markets have on the US economy and the major asset classes?
• The Fed
  • Should investors be expecting more stimulus to follow soon?
• Europe
  • How close to the wire is the situation there at this point?
• Gold
  • How should the metal fare up from here? Where should ‘safe money’ park?

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish cover:

• Yesterday’s ‘Operation Twist’ announcement by the Fed: 
  • What exactly was announced yesterday and what’s the likely impact?
    
  • Who is likely to benefit (and who isn’t)?
  • What’s likely to be announced at the next Fed meeting in six weeks?
  • How much ability does the Fed really have to influence the outcome of our economic situation anymore?

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish focus on:

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish get down to brass tacks on:

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish tackle:

• The Market: What’s the future of the recent rally? If it’s nearing its end, what’s more probable – a consolidation or a jolt to the downside?
• Recession/Recovery: Which are we in? The media is full of conflicting messages – what’s the truth here?
• Housing: The numbers continue to look grim. Is there any light at the end of this tunnel for homeowners? Or for the banks holding morgage debt? (spoiler alert: Don’t get your hopes up.)
• Jackson Hole: What are the Fed’s options here (not many) and which one(s) are they likely to implement next?

In short, Chris and Mish see an increasing number of concerning data that indicate the markets are in for a tough ride this fall.

In this week’s Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Chris and Mish tackle:

• Gold: with today’s sharp pullback after an amazing run upwards in the previous two weeks, how concerned should precious metal investors be? Are its fundamentals still strong? 
• Banks: are we staring at another, and possibily larger, 2008-style bank insolvency crisis?
• Europe: will the PIIGS pull the Euro apart?
• China: what impact would economic weakness in China (and signs of stress there are mounting) introduce into the equation?

At this point, confidence is high both a fiscal crisis and susequent monetary crisis are inevitable – and neither is far away. The debate now is: what is going to be the trigger that sets them off?

The latest Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris is out!

In this week’s podcast, Chris and Mish tackle:

• Gold: The yellow metal is up $180/oz since July 1, fueled in part by expectations of quantitative easing around the world. While likely not imminent in the US, speculation of a future announcement by the Fed is growing as the swoon in the financial marktes deepens. And news like that from the Swiss National Bank – which has announced it will take steps to ease in order to weaken the fast-appreciating Swiss franc – are signaling to investors that there are no paper options for those looking for “safe” currencies. Add to this the negative real rates offered by traditional ‘safe havens’ like T-bills, and gold is increasingly becoming the only option for the risk-averse crowd
• Market risk: Crash risks go up when the market is oversold. Mix in weakening economic data in the US and Europe. Add increasingly reckless and poorly-conceived intervention by central planners. At some point, market participants may decide their self-preservation outweighs their faith in the status quo. If they do, it will happen under conditions like we’re seeing now – and fast.